Jean Rousset de Missy (

Laon Laon () is a city in the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. History Early history The holy district of Laon, which rises a hundred metres above the otherwise flat Picardy plain, has always held strategic importance. In ...

, 26 August 1686–

Uithoorn Uithoorn () is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Population centres The municipality of Uithoorn consists of the following cities, towns, villages and/or districts: De Kwakel and Uithoorn. ''Dutch ...

?, 13 August, 1762) was a French

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

writer, from early in life in the Netherlands. He was a renowned historian and author on international law and a prolific journalist. Born in Laon from Protestant parents (Jean Rousset and Rachel Cottin), he studied at the Collège du Plessis in Paris. After a conflict with his stepmother he joined the

Dutch States Army The Dutch States Army ( nl, Staatse leger) was the army of the Dutch Republic. It was usually called this, because it was formally the army of the States-General of the Netherlands, the sovereign power of that federal republic. This mercenary army ...

during the

War of the Spanish Succession The War of the Spanish Succession was a European great power conflict that took place from 1701 to 1714. The death of childless Charles II of Spain in November 1700 led to a struggle for control of the Spanish Empire between his heirs, Phil ...

and was present at the

Battle of Malplaquet The Battle of Malplaquet took place on 11 September 1709 during the War of the Spanish Succession and was fought between a French army commanded by the Duke of Villars and a Grand Alliance force under the Duke of Marlborough. In one of the blo ...

(1709). In 1724 (after having founded and led a school for aristocratic boys in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

), he started his activities as a professional journalist.

Jurist

He worked together with Jean Dumont de Carelskroon (1667–1727), jurist of

Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor , house = Habsburg , spouse = , issue = , issue-link = #Children , issue-pipe = , father = Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor , mother = Eleonore Magdalene of Neuburg , birth_date ...

, and author of the ''Corps Universel Diplomatique du Droit des Gens'', to which he published an addition in 1739. Rousset's ''Recueil historique'' and ''Intérêts presens'' were the international reference works for contemporary diplomats. Rousset emphasized the importance of voluntary, or secondary international law: by contracting treaties, monarchs, republics and cities constantly amended, altered or created international law. As natural law (the "first" pillar) was concerned, Rousset referred to the 17th Century theorists

Hugo Grotius Hugo Grotius (; 10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645), also known as Huig de Groot () and Hugo de Groot (), was a Dutch humanist, diplomat, lawyer, theologian, jurist, poet and playwright. A teenage intellectual prodigy, he was born in Delft ...

and

Samuel Pufendorf Samuel Freiherr von Pufendorf (8 January 1632 – 26 October 1694) was a German jurist, political philosopher, economist and historian. He was born Samuel Pufendorf and ennobled in 1694; he was made a baron by Charles XI of Sweden a few months b ...

. For Rousset, his task in assembling formal acts was to give insight to the rulers and their advisers. As he stated in the foreword to his 1733 ''Intérêts presens'': :"La Politique, c'est l'art de gouverner l'Etat, & d'en diriger toutes les Affaires, soit dans la Paix, soit dans la Guerre, relativement à ses Interêts avec les autres Puissances, & conformement au Droit & à la Justice." Doing so, Rousset believed disputes between sovereigns could be settled by established procedures, following both older (Westphalia, Oliva, Golden Bul) and newer treaties (e.g. the 1713 Peace of Utrecht). War could thus be avoided by taking the road of informal and alternative dispute settlement mechanisms. In this, Rousset followed the established policy of French Prime Minister

André-Hercule de Fleury André-Hercule de Fleury, Bishop of Fréjus, Archbishop of Aix (22 June or 26 June 165329 January 1743) was a French cardinal who served as the chief minister of Louis XV. Life and government He was born in Lodève, Hérault, the son of a tax f ...

(1653–1743) and British Prime Minister

Robert Walpole Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, (26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745; known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole) was a British statesman and Whig politician who, as First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Leader ...

(1676–1745), who already continued the views of the French Regent,

Philippe II, Duke of Orléans Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (Philippe Charles; 2 August 1674 – 2 December 1723), was a French prince, soldier, and statesman who served as Regent of the Kingdom of France from 1715 to 1723. He is referred to in French as ''le Régent''. ...

, his minister

Guillaume Dubois Guillaume Dubois (6 September 1656 – 10 August 1723) was a French cardinal and statesman. Life and government Early years Dubois, the third of the four great Cardinal-Ministers ( Richelieu, Mazarin, Dubois, and Fleury), was born in Brive-l ...

(both + 1723) and the British minister

James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope (c. 16735 February 1721) was a British soldier, diplomat and statesman who effectively served as Chief Minister between 1717 and 1721. He is also the last Chancellor of the Exchequer to sit in the House of Lor ...

(+1721). Next to the publication of treaties, Rousset also was an authority concerning ''ceremonial'', a sensitive issue between sovereign courts. Rousset's texts were quoted or even copied extensively in French archival sources.

Historian

Rousset and Dumont wrote a military account of the

, illustrated by the Dutch engraver and painter

Jan van Huchtenburg J(oh)an and Jacob van Huchtenburg (also known as Hughtenburg or Hugtenburg(h)) were two Dutch Golden Age painters in the second half of the seventeenth century. Both brothers were natives of Haarlem, moved to Paris, but died in Amsterdam. The ma ...

. Rousset also treated Russia under Czarina Catherine I, and Peter the Great and Spain under King

Philip V Philip V may refer to: * Philip V of Macedon (221–179 BC) * Philip V of France (1293–1322) * Philip II of Spain, also Philip V, Duke of Burgundy (1526–1598) * Philip V of Spain Philip V ( es, Felipe; 19 December 1683 – 9 July 1746) was ...

Journalist

Rousset, son of an exiled Huguenot and a former combatant at the Battle of Malplaquet (1709), is also known for his activities as a journalist (''Mercure historique et politique''), some of his correspondence has been published. In 1748 he became involved in the Orangist revolution in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. He was suspected of publishing anonymous pamphlets against the Stadtholderless regime and of leaking diplomatic information, which landed him in prison for a while. He was freed on the order of the newly appointed

stadtholder In the Low Countries, ''stadtholder'' ( nl, stadhouder ) was an office of steward, designated a medieval official and then a national leader. The ''stadtholder'' was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and H ...

William IV, Prince of Orange William IV (Willem Karel Hendrik Friso; 1 September 1711 – 22 October 1751) was Prince of Orange from birth and the first hereditary stadtholder of all the United Provinces of the Netherlands from 1747 until his death in 1751. During his whole l ...

, who appointed him his personal historian and councillor. The stadtholder and he fell out, however, after Rousset joined the leadership of the democratic

Doelisten The Doelisten were an orangist civic movement in Amsterdam, named after its primary meeting location the Kloveniersdoelen (or 'de Doelen' in short), which opposed the power of the Amsterdam mayors in the summer of 1748. The emergence of the mo ...

faction in Amsterdam (together with

Daniel Raap Daniël Raap (Amsterdam, 1703 – Amsterdam, 10 January 1754) was a porcelain merchant who played a leading role during the Orangist revolution in the Netherlands of 1747–1751. During the opening months of the revolution that would put an end ...

), and Rousset was fired as personal historian of the stadtholder. After he published a pamphlet that earned a complaint from the French ambassador he was forced to flee to Brussels. After having spent a few years there, apparently in the service of the government of the

Austrian Netherlands The Austrian Netherlands nl, Oostenrijkse Nederlanden; french: Pays-Bas Autrichiens; german: Österreichische Niederlande; la, Belgium Austriacum. was the territory of the Burgundian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire between 1714 and 1797. The p ...

, he returned to the Dutch Republic in 1752, where he retired to the village of

Maarssen Maarssen () is a town in the middle of the Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht, along the river Vecht and the Amsterdam–Rhine Canal. The west of Maarssen is called Maarssen-BroekStatistics are taken from thSDU Staatscourant whereas the east ...

till his death on 13 August 1762 (which may have taken place in the village of

). He was buried in the church of Thamen (near Uithoorn) 18 August 1762.Noord-Hollands Archief: Archieven, DTB Uithoorn 183.24, 4. Hervormde gemeente Thamen, book 16 burials 1760-1796, page 4

References

External links

Bibliothèque nationale de France (query in catalog renders list of Jean Rousset de Missy's works)
* Margaret Jacob ''The Role of the Dutch Republic as the intellectual entrepot of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries'', Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, LXXXVI (1971), nr. 3, 323-349. * Margaret Jacob ''The Radical Enlightenment'' Cornerstone Books 2004, FIRST PUBLISHED 1981 {{DEFAULTSORT:Rousset De Missy, Jean 1686 births 1762 deaths 18th-century Dutch military personnel 18th-century French historians French male non-fiction writers International law scholars